Reality TV At It's Best and Most Brutal.

Well it’s that time of year again, and a time in my household where my computer is fixed upon live webcams (4am-Midnight.)

It’s the best reality TV show to ever hit the airwaves.

The births, the deaths, the near deaths and the unexpected, we cheer, we cry, we’re amazed and repulsed...

In many a way, it's like having the BBC move in for three weeks, you find yourself sat there waiting for that last egg to hatch, or for those damn badgers to make an appearance.

I remember one year, the badger cams ran throughout the night, no presenting, but you could txt in to the show and they'd txt back.

It was the same names each evening along with the same camera crew... many a lame joke was shared, and then we all disappear for a year and you meet up once again on line or via interactive TV the following year.

It is quite the community.

Local parks and library's get inspired and host family fun days. It is has become a real live British event which is embraced by so many.

It is of course the BBCs Springwatch the annual  television series which chart the fortunes of British wildlife of the United Kingdom.

The programmes are broadcast live from locations around the country in a prime time evening slot on BBC Two and run for three weeks.

Many of the cameras are hidden and operated remotely to record natural behaviour, for example, of birds in their nests and badgers outside their sett.

The Springwatch brand has expanded to incorporate further TV spin-offs and specials, and also has a strong online presence.
The BBC Springwatch website offers further video content and allows viewers and programme makers to interact through a message board, Flickr photography group, blogs and the @BBC_Springwatch Twitter account.

Its aim is getting viewers to actively participate in wildlife conservation.

It expands right across the BBC to the childrens TV channels CBBC and CBeebies with their own version and tie-ins of the show and what is going on, being seen and how to become pro-active within conservation in some fun and simple ways.

And sports one the best theme songs on kids tv.

My son and I have sang along with this for the past four years! (also autumnwatch, check back in five months.)

Originally the presenters were the wondrous Bill Oddie, Kate Humble and Simon King.

Bill left after the 2008 programmes and was replaced by Chris Packham, someone who I have grown up watching on TV and was quite an inspiration to a young me in my own career choice when watching the 1980s childrens TV show The Really Wild Show.

Martin Hughes-Games, formerly a Springwatch producer, also joined the team when Simon King announced he was leaving to pursue other projects in Africa.

This year we have seen Kate leave to pursue other projects and become a mum!

Springwatch is scheduled to return on 28 May 2012, live and direct from Ynys-hir RSPB reserve in Wales for three weeks, Monday to Thursday.

Chris and Martin will present the show, with Kate Humble being replaced by presenter and another former Really Wild show cohort Michaela Strachan.

This year we will see the trials and tribulations of some the regulars like; Blue Tits, Owls and rascally Badgers! 

But there are two new web cams to feast our eyes upon, Grass Snakes and a Wren Family.

So who knows what will happen in one of the most brutal and uncensored TV shows.

Tune in. Be There Or Be A Rhombus!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/18035848

Rallying Call To Arms!?... Not so much.

Hoorah!!

Lets have a celebratory drink as perennial agit-punk folk rockers The Levellers are back with a new album.

The release of Static on the Airwaves will soon be on us - and gives some us ageing and jaded protesters a clutch of new anthems to rally around.

 

This will the bands tenth album and the days of artists having a large back catalogue of material has been left behind with a relentless boom and bust of bands now being the norm.

 

Yet here are the Levellers are setting another trend, and doing it in style.

 

'Static on the Airwaves' is a more mature collection of songs.

 

The fire is still there, and it's apparent on every track, but the impression is that they don't feel the need to roar the message any more, and I like that.

 

It feels like band and fans are all growing in the same direction, and at a similar pace.

 

What we have is a reasoned and incisive level of global commentary that cuts to the bone just as hard as it would if it was the rallying call to arms of old.

 

The soundtrack to a night of drunken revelry and politics has been dropped, and in its place a more coherent argument for seeking out an alternative to the status quo is advanced.

 

It's all rather clever, a catalyst to reconsidering your understanding of the world we live in.

 

So much of it will be considered as preaching to the already converted, but there's never any harm in being reminded that politically while we may feel lost and alone that none of us really are.

 

It's a timely reminder that there is nothing new under the sun and what we are seeing is the age old rise and fall of empires going on around us.

 

Maybe some young music lovers looking for something new will listen to the album and be able to read the writing on the wall as so many of us did when the Levellers first arrived on the scene all those many years ago.

 

I sincerely hope so.

 

 

 

Twenty years on, and I'm still has hooked on these guys as I ever was.

 

It's a way of life and is my life... may that never change for the both of us.